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Tuesday, March 06, 2018

Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the Water?

We have a bit of a problem at Kwajalein Atoll developing:

A multibillion-dollar military installation in the Pacific that has provided key testing for the U.S. defense against a possible North Korean nuclear strike could become uninhabitable in less than two decades due to climate change.

The site, which is threatened by rising sea levels, is also used to track space junk that can cripple spacecraft.

The Army's Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on the low-lying Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands is expected to be submerged by seawater at least once a year, according to a new study ordered by the Department of Defense. That marks a "tipping point" that could wipe out the island's source of fresh water by 2035, says the report, which was quietly released late last week.

Okay, that's a problem. But even if it is caused by climate change, nothing we could possibly do could conceivably have any effect on the problem.

Have we learned nothing from the Chinese who turn bits of rock occasionally sitting above sea level into island bases in the South China Sea?

Work the problem, people. I'm reasonably sure the Army Corps of Engineers could address the problem.